"For the vast majority of us, the lion represents something that is amazing, something that is powerful, the king of the jungle," said Josh Klapow, a clinical psychologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The play value of parks, playgrounds and open play spaces is higher in affluent communities than in nonaffluent communities, according to research from occupational therapy students in the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Health Professions.

]]>traci@uab.edu (Traci Bratton)In the NewsFri, 31 Jul 2015 12:53:17 -0500The role of genetic variants in CRP in radiographic severity in African Americans with early and established rheumatoid arthritishttps://www.uab.edu/news/in-the-news/item/6349-the-role-of-genetic-variants-in-crp-in-radiographic-severity-in-african-americans-with-early-and-established-rheumatoid-arthritis
https://www.uab.edu/news/in-the-news/item/6349-the-role-of-genetic-variants-in-crp-in-radiographic-severity-in-african-americans-with-early-and-established-rheumatoid-arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a common form of inflammatory arthritis affecting synovial joints, has a variable clinical expression ranging from mild disease to severe joint destruction

When machines and brains mix, who's in charge? This is the type of problem pondered by neuroethicists such as UAB's Josh May, Ph.D., who examine questions at the crossroads of neuroscience and ethics.

Think about this: A 59-year-old Dutch man with advanced Parkinson’s disease is experiencing debilitating tremors. His doctors implant electrodes deep in his brain, which counteract the faulty signals but cause new troubles. The man starts behaving erratically, making grandiose claims, racking up sizable debts and generally making poor decisions. His doctors adjust the stimulation settings, and even prescribe mood stabilizing drugs, but they don’t help. Eventually, he has to make a choice: Stop the stimulation and be admitted to a nursing home, or keep it and be confined to a psychiatric ward.

This real-life dilemma, pulled from the pages of a Dutch medical journal, illustrates the ethical quandaries that arise from new mind-altering technologies such as deep-brain stimulation, says Josh May, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences Department of Philosophy.

“The patient chose mental disorder over physical impairment,” said May. “But does a manic state limit one’s decisional capacity? Must we make sure his decision is made when he is suffering from the symptoms of Parkinson’s, free from an overactive mind prone to reckless behavior and delusions of grandiosity?”

These are the kinds of questions you’ll find at the crossroads of neuroscience and ethics, in a new field known as neuroethics. “Neuroscience attempts to understand and manipulate the brain, which is still largely a mystery,” May said. “That makes the ethics of its research especially tricky and fascinating. And it makes the results directly relevant to ethics itself, especially perennial questions about what drives moral and immoral action, how we think about morality, and whether we’re really in control of our actions.”

Brain scans are being used to advance longstanding arguments about ethical theories, for example. And researchers — May included — are taking advantage of the reach of the Internet to investigate ethical dilemmas in entirely new ways.

What follows is an edited version of an email conversation with Dr. May.

How are technologies like functional MRI being used to shape ethical debates?

Josh MayOne famous example involves a philosopher-turned-neuroscientist at Harvard University, Josh Greene. He argues that neuroimaging can help prove utilitarianism — the ethical theory that we should always and only maximize happiness for the greatest number of people. This means that sometimes the ends justify the means, even if the means to the greater good are the most horrific acts you can imagine.

Greene wants us to trust the utilitarian intuitions we have, which he argues arise from areas of the brain developed later in evolution, that are more characteristic of our ability to think carefully and override emotional responses. For example, people tend to think it’s immoral to push a large man off of a bridge so that his body stops a train from hitting five other innocent people (assuming only his body could stop the train). Greene says, don’t trust that response! Act for the greater good and push that man! Trust the part of your brain that can override that automatic response and do the cold calculation.

What do you think about this argument?

This research is fascinating and certainly adding to our knowledge of how our moral brains work. But I do have several worries about the ethical conclusions Greene draws. For example, the brain’s automatic, emotional responses are not clearly untrustworthy, as evidence suggests they’re quite flexible and subconsciously shaped by rational thought. While Greene argues such responses aren’t equipped to resolve complex contemporary moral problems, they may provide a shared moral framework that is precisely suited to resolving moral disputes. After all, if these intuitions are so engrained in the brain, then they may provide a kind of common moral currency.

In general, I think research on moral judgment is revealing that principles are more important to moral thinking than emotions, even for automatic responses. We certainly have biases, and emotions have their role, but morality involves complex social information and norms that we seem to tacitly navigate. Our automatic moral intuitions shouldn’t so easily be tossed aside, even if they conflict with utilitarianism, as they are guided by sophisticated information processing that is suited to rational social interaction.

So how do you do your research, given that it crosses disciplinary boundaries?

Philosophical research involves a lot of thinking for sure, as you have to consider arguments, objections, etc. Most of my research time is probably devoted to reading — hours upon hours of painstaking reading. Especially since my work straddles multiple disciplines, there’s always plenty to keep up on. Each article or chapter can take hours to read carefully, and I bet I read about 50 to 100 per year. While the reading is usually interesting, the writing is very poor and far from leisurely. The same goes for writing and revising my own papers. For me at least, a lot of my research ultimately involves thinking; but it’s often done while reading, writing or talking with other academics, although some of it does happen when I’m driving, cooking, watching a show, etc. I personally find it difficult to sit in silence for very long just thinking with my chin on my fist!

I do sometimes conduct my own experiments, which requires design, ethics approval, etc. But a large part requires assessing the results, reading about other research, formulating arguments, assessing objections and writing it all up — a whole lot of thinking beyond just data gathering!

And you’ve been doing some interesting experiments using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service?

I’ve been using MTurk for several years now. It allows me to quickly gather responses from a diverse group of people online, instead of doing paper-and-pencil surveys around campus. Often the studies I do involve variations on the famous trolley problem, which pits promoting the greater good against violating people’s bodily rights.

For example, I’ll present participants with a version of a hypothetical scenario and ask them to provide their moral opinion about it — Did the person act wrongly? Then I compare the responses across scenarios that vary slightly in different respects, e.g., in whether the harm was brought about actively or passively, as a means to a goal or as an unintended side effect. Statistical analysis can tell us whether the differences are significant — providing evidence about whether the variable had a causal impact on responses. This technique — standard in so-called “experimental philosophy” — can help reveal the underlying distinctions and principles we make in moral judgment. I’ve followed a growing trend suggesting that our automatic intuitions are often in conflict with the prescriptions of utilitarianism, but I suggest that these intuitions aren’t necessarily due to factors that are morally irrelevant and so shouldn’t necessarily be rejected.

How might these issues affect everyday moral problems?

Here’s a medical example. Many people think a doctor shouldn’t help end a terminal patient’s life as a way to halt their immense suffering. That’s illegal in most states. But we don’t have such a problem with a doctor’s administering heavy doses of morphine to treat severe pain, even if she and the patient know it will hasten death. The patient’s death is then merely a foreseen and unintended side effect. Is this a quirk about euthanasia, or do we systematically treat harming as a mere side effect as more acceptable than harming as means?

I’m currently working on a series of studies that involve presenting participants with hypothetical cases in different contexts to see if their judgments change just based on the difference in how the harm was brought about. I hope this will inform whether the distinction is a viable one.

I understand you’ve been introducing UAB students to neuroethics with a course first offered this past spring?

It was a seminar, offered at the 200 and 400 levels, serving as a capstone for the Philosophy major. It was a blast! I had some excellent students, some of whom had backgrounds in neuroscience. Mike Sloane, the director of the University Honors Program, sat in as well, and he added some great insights from his discipline (psychology).

We covered a wide range of questions, including: Can the results of a brain scan constitute self-incrimination (thus violating the Fifth Amendment)? Does subconscious neural activity determine our behavior prior to conscious awareness? Is someone responsible for a criminal act if it was the result of a brain tumor? Do psychopaths have such an impaired understanding of morality that they can’t be liable for criminal acts? Which areas of the brain are responsible for moral thought and action? Is there something wrong with making oneself a better person by altering one’s brain directly (e.g., via pills or deep brain stimulation)? Can altering one’s brain yield a fundamentally different person? How does this affect consenting to brain interventions?

I’m hoping to cover similar topics in a future seminar, but perhaps down the line this could become a more regular offering.

UAB Hospital is the third-largest public hospital in the nation, according to a survey by Becker’s Hospital Review. UAB’s 1,134 beds trails only Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami and Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital in Houston.

According to the Becker’s website, the hospital bed counts reported include all medical/surgical and special care beds in children’s, critical access and acute care facilities under governmental control, as reported to the Center for Medicare Services by the hospitals in their most recent cost reports.

Play is an important part of child development, and a UAB student research project shows that disparities exist between play spaces depending on where one lives.

Parks with low play value have physical and social barriers for play activities. These include limited open areas with closely mown grass for open play, and lack of security fencing. Such park environments serve only limited play purpose, with static rather than dynamic features of play equipment, and do not support children’s daily requirements for physical activity. Parks with low play value often lack environmental biodiversity features or loose play materials for manipulation.The play value of parks, playgrounds and open play spaces is higher in affluent communities than in nonaffluent communities, according to research from occupational therapy students in the University of Alabama at BirminghamSchool of Health Professions.

Play value refers to the usability of any environmental features or play areas as a setting for play, generating diverse play opportunities and experiences that suit various children’s needs, motivations and abilities.

“Children learn through play, and studies have shown that access to safe, well-designed parks provides health benefits to children,” said Gavin Jenkins, Ph.D., OTR/L, assistant professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy who mentored the student research project. “Understanding the quality of play environments will help communities ensure that all children have access to imaginative, stimulating play environments.”

The four UAB OT students, Amy Maher, Emily Rose, Kristina Gregory and Megan Cotton, studied six parks in Mountain Brook, Alabama, and five parks in Irondale, Alabama. According to the most recent United States Census Bureau American Community Survey, the median annual income for Mountain Brook ($131,281) is more than double that of Irondale ($50,157), which is below the U.S. average.

The students, paired in teams of two, conducted independent evaluations of each play park using the Playable Space Quality Assessment Tool, or PSQAT. The PSQAT provides scores based on location, play value, and care and maintenance. Mountain Brook’s median scores were nearly 50 percent higher in play value (61.00 vs. 43.50) and care and maintenance (76.43 vs. 53.57) and almost double Irondale’s location score (82.14 vs. 47.14).

“The children who were actively using the Mountain Brook play spaces appeared to have all needs available, such as clean restrooms, accessibility to play structures and spaces, and cleared walking surfaces,” Maher said. “There was also a noticeable sense of safety as police or maintenance was present while the children engaged with other children in their play environments.”

The student authors say parks with high play value draw children and young people to visit, and also provide opportunities for a variety of play activities, including allowing children to adapt park elements for their own play purposes and support free exploration.The student authors say parks with high play value draw children and young people to visit, and also provide opportunities for a variety of play activities, including allowing children to adapt park elements for their own play purposes and support free exploration. These characteristics of parks entice children and young people to return time and again for repeat visits.

On the other hand, parks with low play value have physical and social barriers for play activities. These include limited open areas with closely mown grass for open play, and lack of security fencing. Such park environments serve only limited play purpose, with static rather than dynamic features of play equipment, and do not support children’s daily requirements for physical activity. Parks with low play value often lack environmental biodiversity features or loose play materials for manipulation, the authors suggest.

“Studies like this could be used to help communities determine how well they are doing, but perhaps more importantly help them to prioritize the improvements needed to their sites,” Jenkins said. “This study provides a further window into the challenges of providing suitable play environments and opportunities for children and young people who live in low-income neighborhoods.”

“Improving parks and playgrounds would encourage families to use the play spaces, and that in-turn would give children more access to active play, which is central to child development and social, emotional, cognitive and physical well-being,” Maher said.

The students’ research was part of their final research project supported by their Occupations of Infants, Children and Adolescents class in the Master of Science in Occupational Therapy program. As part of the program, the students learn the importance of play, stages of play, functions of play, and more, for their careers as OTs.

In the conclusion of this study, the students noted that their research provided them “a further window into the challenges of providing suitable play environments and opportunities for children and young people who live in low-income neighborhoods.”

Colleges have always had crime: "violence and vandalism and all the various things that happen when you put a bunch of relatively young people together in a relatively small space," said John J. Sloan III, a professor of criminology and sociology at the University of Alabama Birmingham who studies campus crime.

The Rita Allen Foundation Scholars program supports basic biomedical research in the fields of cancer, immunology and neuroscience. Scholars are early-stage investigators and leaders in their respective fields who are advancing our understanding of the human condition.

Sorge’s research is primarily in the field of neuroscience, specifically focused on pain. His lab explores the interplay between addiction and pain, as well as the role of the immune system in pain sensitivity. As a scholar in pain research, Sorge will be granted $50,000 per year for up to three years to support his work.

The Rita Allen Foundation Scholars program has supported more than 140 scientists since 1976. The program embraces innovative research with above-average risk and groundbreaking possibilities. Scholars have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize in Medicine, and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

“By investing in outstanding biomedical scientists at the early stages of their careers, we are providing resources to these scholars to pioneer new approaches and discoveries,” said Elizabeth Christopherson, president and chief executive officer of the Rita Allen Foundation. “Researching basic biological questions is essential to improving human health and alleviating suffering caused by cancer, chronic pain, mental illness and other maladies.”

Sorge joins a prestigious class of scholars, with other recipients representing Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University and others.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Collat School of Business is offering two daylong seminars July 30 and Sept. 18 at The Club to help working professionals stay current on accounting and auditing changes. CPAs who complete the seminars will be able to earn up to 16 hours of Continuing Professional Education credit.

Steve Grice, Ph.D., CPA, the Botts Professor of Accounting and director of the Master of Accountancy program at Troy University, will provide the keynote address Thursday, July 30. Grice previously served as a professor of accounting at UAB and was director of its Master of Accounting program. He has written more than 40 journal articles and provided technical consultation to various CPA firms. He currently serves as the Scholar-in-Residence for Carr, Riggs & Ingram, LLC.

Quinton Booker, Ph.D., CPA, professor and chairman of the Department of Accounting at Jackson State University, will provide the keynote address Friday, Sept. 18. Booker is a member of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy’s Center for the Public Trust. He served as a member of the Mississippi State Board of Public Accountancy from 1992 to 2002, and recently completed a three-year term on the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ board of directors.

Individuals can attend either session for $275, or for a discounted rate of $225 for those in groups of three or more. The fee covers the sessions and materials, as well as continental breakfast, lunch and refreshments.

Academic advisors from the Collat School of Business and College of Arts and Sciences recognized nationally for their contributions to the improvement of advising services.

Academic advisors from two University of Alabama at Birmingham schools received awards during the National Academic Advising Association annual meeting. Collat School of Business academic advisor Andrea Miller Pound received the Outstanding Advising Award, and Tyna Adams, advisor in the College of Arts and Sciences, received the Outstanding New Advisor Award.

Pound was one of just 10 advisors nationally to receive the Outstanding Advising Award, and Adams was one of only 14 advisors nationally to receive the Outstanding New Advisor Award.

These awards are designed to honor individuals and institutions making significant contributions to the improvement of academic advising. The goal of the NACADA Annual Awards Program is to encourage wider support and recognition for academic advising in colleges and universities by providing an opportunity for recognition of outstanding advising. An ultimate outcome of this program is to improve advising services for students.

A new surgical robot helps UAB physicians add a new technique for preparing for epilepsy surgery.

There is a new surgical robot in town. The ROSA robot is helping physicians at the University of Alabama at Birmingham detect the source of seizures in patients with epilepsy. ROSA offers patients, and their physicians, a unique advantage over traditional surgical approaches: it can do the job with a lot of little holes as opposed to the one very large opening that has been used up to this point.

For epilepsy patients who are interested in epilepsy surgery, determining the precise location of the area within the brain that produces abnormal electrical activity and causes seizures is the key. Once that location is pinpointed, and if it’s not too close to a critical area (for speech or motor centers, for example), it can be surgically removed.

For some patients, nonsurgical investigations are sufficient to determine the area of seizure onset and allow patients to go directly to a potentially curative surgery. However, for many patients with epilepsy, the non-invasive studies do not provide enough information to proceed to surgery. For these patients, direct intracranial recording of brain activity, specifically seizure activity, is required.

In order to perform direct intracranial recording, the patient undergoes an operation to place electrodes directly on the brain or within the brain. This allows for electroencephalography, or EEG, to record electrical activity in the brain. For intracranial EEG, the traditional approach has been for the surgeon to perform a craniotomy, in which they remove a large section of the patient’s skull, and then lay a grid of electrodes directly on the brain.

The electrodes remain in place for up to two weeks while the patient resides in a seizure monitoring unit. As seizures occur, the corresponding electrical activity is noted, and epilepsy physicians can determine if surgery is an option, and if so, where to cut. But, having a large piece of skull removed for several weeks is a very invasive surgery. It can be painful and uncomfortable, and carries risks including a risk of infection.

“The ROSA robot allows us to very safely, efficiently and precisely place the sEEG electrodes. With the robot, we can efficiently move from one electrode trajectory to the next. The robotic precision tracks multiple trajectories, ensuring that each electrode is placed in the safest, most optimal position.”

There is another way, long used in Europe but only recently approved for use in the United States. It is called stereotactic EEG, or sEEG, and it does away with the craniotomy in favor of multiple small holes — called burr holes — drilled into the skull. Electrodes are then threaded through the holes and placed in areas that are suspected to produce the disabling seizures.

“Instead of using this very invasive procedure requiring a craniotomy and exposing the brain, we can drill small burr holes in a skull and place the electrodes directly inside the brain,” said Jerzy Szaflarski, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Department of Neurology and director of the UAB Epilepsy Center. “Over the past few years we have learned that sEEG provides a much less invasive approach and we have implemented this approach at UAB in 2013.”

And UAB is one of the first U.S. hospitals to obtain the ROSA robot, produced by Medtech. ROSA, which the company calls ‘a reliable and accurate surgical assistant’, fine tunes the sEEG process. Using standard scalp EEG and MRI images, the team first maps the region of the brain where the seizure locus is suspected to lie. The optimal positioning of the electrodes to confirm the seizure locus is plotted. ROSA, which works in three dimensions, aids in the precise placement of the electrodes.

“The ROSA robot allows us to very safely, efficiently and precisely place the sEEG electrodes,” said Kristen Riley, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Neurosurgery. “With the robot, we can efficiently move from one electrode trajectory to the next. The robotic precision tracks multiple trajectories, ensuring that each electrode is placed in the safest, most optimal position.”

ROSA’s robotic arm unerringly moves to each pre-plotted point. The surgeon drills into the skull and secures an anchor bolt. The electrode is then fed to the desired depth and its leads are connected to a monitor. ROSA then moves to the next position and the process is repeated.

ROSA allows for the placement of numerous arrays of electrodes, including bilateral placements, each with multiple contacts, at varying depths in the brain. This provides for much more complete coverage and a more accurate determination of the seizure locus.

“sEEG is a much less invasive procedure than the craniotomy with subdural grid procedure,” said Riley. “From a patient standpoint, sEEG causes much less discomfort. While it is still a surgical procedure, there is less pain, less discomfort, and patients are much more comfortable in the seizure monitoring unit with the stereo EEG electrodes in place.

Riley and Szaflarski say that the complication profile for sEEG is far less than that of the craniotomy/subdural grid approach.

“We see a lot of potential in the sEEG procedure,” Szaflarski said. “We are still exploring the full capabilities of this approach and we are gradually moving to implement sEEG on a regular basis.”

The UAB Epilepsy Center is one of the largest and most active in the nation and the only one in Alabama. It is a Level 4 Center, the highest designation from the National Association of Epilepsy Centers. The center has the capability to diagnose and treat epilepsy using the latest and most current medical and surgical techniques available anywhere in the world.

“We have the full gamut of epilepsy therapies available at UAB, but we are constantly in search of new and improved treatments,” said Szaflarski. “Currently available therapies work well in approximately 60-70 percent of patients.”

Phillip D. Smith, M.D., has been awarded a two-year, \$200,000 grant from the DeGregorio Family Foundation to study the bacteria in children’s stomachs that potentially protects them from stomach cancer.

Gastric cancer — or stomach cancer — typically affects older people with an average age of 69 years. In developing countries, gastric cancer is one of the top three causes of cancer-related deaths. However, new research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham shows children may hold the answer to how to stop this disease.

Helicobacter pylori infection of the stomach is the leading cause of gastric cancer worldwide, and the infection is endemic in Chile, where H. pylori-associated stomach cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related mortality, Smith says.

“This infection typically begins earlier in life during childhood and persists into adulthood,” he said. “H. pylori-associated gastric inflammation predisposes to gastric cancer, but H. pylori-infected children have reduced gastric inflammation and do not develop gastric cancer compared with H. pylori-infected adults.”

Smith and his colleagues will investigate whether the commensal bacteria (microbiota) of the stomach in children residing in Chile is different from that of adults, and whether it may protect children from H. pylori-associated inflammation and thus gastric cancer.

“This information would provide the foundation for a new direction in uncovering the mechanism for gastric cancer,” Smith said.

Additionally, Smith says these findings have the potential to lead to novel strategies to limit H. pylori-induced inflammation and ultimately gastric cancer.

DFF grants bring critical funding to many of the top academic researchers seeking to expand their scientific discoveries, and they build new collaborations for further research on gastric cancer, specifically H. pylori infection. The DFF seeks to promote and facilitate education and collaborative research on the pathogenesis, early diagnosis and treatment of upper gastrointestinal malignancies.

With the 2011 Alabama tornado catastrophe still lingering in the minds of many, University of Alabama at Birmingham research has led to the creation of new technology designed to help save lives in a natural disaster.

What’s the cure for America’s overcrowded prisons? UAB criminal justice students went behind bars and into courtrooms to explore promising solutions. Discover what they experienced while working with inmate mothers and military veterans receiving a second chance — and learn how the projects changed both attitudes and career goals.

From UAB Magazine

America’s prisons are packed. The United States has the lowest violent crime rate, yet it has the world’s highest rate of incarceration, and it jails criminal offenders for longer periods than any other industrialized country. That has led to a national epidemic of overcrowding. Alabama’s prison system, in particular, has been on the verge of a federal takeover due to overcrowding and issues related to it—including the sexual abuse of inmates.

Martha Earwood’s Community Corrections course explores innovative solutions that can help the criminal justice system reduce these problems. But our attitudes are the first and most important thing that must change, she says. The average person gives prison overcrowding and its effects on inmates little thought and less sympathy. “We are stuck in our stereotypes of ‘you did the crime, now do the time,’” explains Earwood, assistant professor in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences Department of Justice Sciences.

So Earwood developed service-learning projects that take her students inside prisons and courtrooms to get a glimpse into the lives of inmates and other criminal offenders. Interacting with a part of society that is feared and ostracized can shift perceptions and inspire a desire for action, she says.

The projects also introduced students to programs that are already working to improve the system. To ease overcrowding, governments must send less people to prison—or choose alternatives that go beyond probation or parole supervision. Such community-based corrections programs do well even in “tough-on-crime” states like Alabama, Earwood says, because they can help lower the chances that participants will commit future crimes and return to prison.

Bonds through the bars

Sophomore sociology major Lyric Sanders admits that she was a little nervous before walking into the Birmingham Work Release center to see one of these programs in action. But her feelings changed once she met the inmates. “I was shocked—hearing them talk about their children and grandchildren, you realize that they are just like everybody else,” Sanders says. “I realized that not everyone with a jail record is a tough, hardened criminal. They had just one thing in their lives that went wrong.”

Sanders was among a group of students who visited the work release center and the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka to record short video messages from inmate mothers to their children. Carol Potok, executive director of the nonprofit group Aid to Inmate Mothers (AIM) helped open the doors of these facilities to Earwood and her students. One of AIM’s most successful initiatives, known as Storybook, records mothers reading books to their young children. Each child then receives a DVD of that video with a copy of the book his or her mother read. Inspired by Storybook, Earwood developed the student service-learning project to provide a similar outlet for inmate mothers with older children who want to send messages about things like missed birthdays and holidays. “All those holidays we take for granted are painful for people who are separated from their families,” Earwood says.

“The research is unrelenting that maintaining relationships with key family members is a way for people to be successful when they leave prison,” Earwood adds. “That adjustment is huge, and if your relationships have remained intact, then you have a better shot.” Such programs also can improve the behavior of women while they remain in prison, Earwood adds.

Some of the mothers supplemented their videos with notes and drawings. “Color is something you miss in prison,” says Earwood, who supplied the inmates with colored paper and pens. One woman asked students to record her singing a song and playing the piano.

The personal nature of the messages “made the students see the measure of what the inmates had lost,” Potok says.

Mother to mother

Sanders and her classmate Patricia Goldsmith, an honors student double-majoring in sociology and criminal justice, took that loss to heart—perhaps more than some other students, because Goldsmith is Sanders’s mother. The two discussed how being separated by prison walls would affect them both. Sanders says she would struggle greatly if she didn’t have her mother around.

“These inmates look like your kids, your mother, or your grandmother,” Goldsmith says. “We kept talking about how sad it is that we can’t fix things for them right now.” She does hope that more people, regardless of major or profession, will take a course like Earwood’s Community Corrections class and support programs like AIM. After all, 80 percent of the inmates eventually will be released, and everyone should want to help them succeed, she says.

With five children of her own, Goldsmith spoke to the inmates mother-to-mother. When some got so emotional that they wanted to stop recording their messages, Goldsmith encouraged them to take a break and then finish—not only for their children but also for themselves. “I knew they would feel bad for quitting,” Goldsmith says. “It was heartbreaking in a lot of ways, but I felt good that everyone got a video out.” The students created a total of 182 videos at both sites.

Second chances

A couple of years ago, Shelby County tried something new for Alabama—Veterans Court, an alternative sentencing program that gives men and women who have served in the military a chance to stay out of prison. Available to veterans who have committed low-level, not excessively violent crimes, the court requires participants to complete a rigorous, yearlong series of classes and regular drug screenings—or else face prison time.

For their service-learning project, a group of Earwood’s students created a documentary-style video to help Judge William H. Bostick spread the word about Veterans Court to community groups or other counties considering a similar solution. The concept is becoming more popular nationally, and with good reason, Earwood notes. “It’s a great way to keep people out of prison,” she says. “The students saw that connection—veterans are keeping their jobs, they’re paying their bills, they’re paying their child support. It’s much healthier.”

Criminal justice major Eric Glaves, a Hoover resident who was a junior during the video project, says some participants entered the program just to avoid a jail sentence on their records, but in the end, they respected how that second chance helped them. “It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card for the veterans who are participating,” he explains. “They have to work hard. It’s not an easier version of regular court.”

Earwood says the one-year commitment is perhaps more difficult and time consuming than a prison sentence for many offenders. “Judge Bostick had no hesitation to lock up people immediately if they failed a drug screen,” she says. “Students were surprised.”

Bostick’s personal interaction with the participants helps to make the program work, Glaves says. “Judge Bostick opens court by talking with each of the offenders individually. He asks about their lives, and that creates mutual respect.” In addition, other veterans act as mentors, or Alcoholics Anonymous-type sponsors. They never miss a court date and are vital to the program’s success, Glaves says, because the veterans share a bond with one another. Often it’s the mentors who can encourage the offenders to open up and talk.

Above all, Glaves was struck by the similarities between himself, people he knows, and the people in the court. “Not all criminals are inherently bad,” he says. “They are human beings who can change.”

Enhancing justice

As Earwood had hoped, the service-learning projects have inspired students to consider working toward improving the criminal justice system. Sanders plans to use her sociology degree to pursue research quantifying the success of community corrections programs, specifically their effects on inmates’ children, who often end up in the system themselves. Such research could lead to more funding for these programs, Sanders notes. Glaves would like to see the Veterans Court mentorship concept spread, even to standard criminal courts. “That would help a lot with recidivism rates,” he says.

“My students are the next generation of policy makers, and they have seen something that average citizens don’t,” Earwood says. “They know how community corrections programs work and the impact they make. We’re not saying that we should be devoid of justice or consequences, but we’ve got to think about these things differently if we’re going to prevent prison overcrowding. We can figure out better ways of punishing people.”

ipton plans to continue SRI’s work in drug development, the defense world and clean energy, while also increasing collaboration with UAB and boosting commercialization efforts from the research that takes place at the institute.

The School of Education looks to enhance learning outcomes, health and wellness of P-12 population, as well as of adults in Alabama and around the world.

Deborah Voltz, EdD, Dean, School of Education, helps high school student during Innovative Learning Collaborative pilot program at Parker High School.Since establishing the initial framework of its strategic plan in 2011, the UAB School of Education has refined goals and objectives and is concentrating efforts around several areas through 2017.

“The School of Education is working to impact human potential more broadly,” said Dean Deborah L. Voltz, Ed.D. “We recognize that there is a symbiotic relationship between health and education. This is reflected in excellence in faculty research and programs that give students the training and knowledge to enhance P-12 education and health and wellness for individuals in Alabama and around the world.”

The school’s focus through 2017 includes strengthening enrollment, enhancing student support services, expanding online program offerings, increasing external funding, and increasing the number of educators prepared to work in high-poverty schools and in high-needs areas such as math, science, special education and English as a second language.

“The UAB School of Education plays a very important role in improving the quality of education in Alabama, a goal to which the school is extremely dedicated,” said UAB President Ray L. Watts. “With Dean Voltz’s leadership, faculty, staff, students and supporters are working together in innovative ways to make a substantial impact on education in our community and beyond.”

Innovation in teaching

The school saw a highly successful first year with its UABTeach program, far surpassing enrollment expectations and receiving significant philanthropic support. Designed to quickly produce a new teaching force of highly qualified instructors in science, technology, engineering and math, the program allows undergraduate STEM majors to receive a subject-matter degree and certification to teach at the secondary level within a four-year graduation plan. The program enrolled 70 freshman and sophomore students last fall. It is the only program of its kind in Alabama and will graduate its first class in 2017.

Opportunities for School of Education students also extend overseas, as UAB is the only university in the state to partner with the Peace Corps. Students looking to combine graduate school with the Peace Corps can do so as Peace Corps Master’s International students in the School of Education, with 14 PCMI master’s degree options. PCMI students complete most of their courses at UAB and spend two years overseas as volunteers working in a career related to their master’s degree.

A new honors program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and an existing program in the Department of Human Studies give students the opportunity to collaborate with faculty to pursue their intellectual interests through research or a service project designed to address a particular societal need as it relates to their field of study.

Other exciting new degree programs are emerging in the school. The UA System Board of Trustees recently approved a doctoral program in educational studies in diverse populations, and a master’s option in school psychometry. The school’s online degree offerings have also grown from two to five fully online programs.

Supporting its exceptional programs is the School of Education’s Office of Student Services, which is developing innovative new initiatives to help students reach their educational goals. The office has developed a new proactive advising model to assist undergraduate students in identifying academic challenges early in their academic careers and utilizing appropriate resources to address those challenges. Additional initiatives to further enhance student services are on the horizon.

The strength of the school’s programs is reflected in the success of its alumni. School of Education alumni have been named Alabama Teacher of the Year — the top teacher in the state — for the last three years, and one has gone on to be a finalist for the national award — one of four top teachers in the country.

The strength of the school’s programs is reflected in the success of its alumni. School of Education alumni have been named Alabama Teacher of the Year — the top teacher in the state — for the last three years, and one has gone on to be a finalist for the national award — one of four top teachers in the country.

Innovation in research

In 2014, the school was awarded a seven-year, $49 million grant by the U.S. Department of Education to increase the number of low-income students prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education. The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) grant provides funding to states to enhance services for students, parents and teachers at high-poverty middle and high schools.

UAB serves as the hub of GEAR UP Alabama, which will impact about 10,450 students from 18 school districts and 53 schools in Alabama’s Black Belt. The program will work with a cohort of students in either sixth or seventh grade and follow them through their first year of college.

With the help of a philanthropic gift from AT&T Alabama, the UAB Innovative Learning Collaborative launched a pilot program with Birmingham City Schools’ Parker High. UAB education students worked with 50 students from Parker High School’s Academy of Urban Educators to better engage them in the learning process and improve their writing skills. One area tested by the program is the use of tablet computers preloaded with reading and writing tools.

A recent $1.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education will assist the school’s early childhood special education program in preparing students, through an interdisciplinary program of study, for careers as early interventionists to improve services and results for young children with disabilities and their families throughout Alabama. The program will provide full scholarships to 14 scholars each year for five years in order to address a state shortage of highly qualified personnel in this area.

The school is focused not only on enhancing learning outcomes for the P-12 population in Alabama and around the world, but also on improving health and wellness for people of all ages. Recently funded research in the school’s Department of Human Studies ranges from exploring family counseling-based approaches to childhood obesity and the effects of aerobic exercise training and exercise intensity in premenopausal women to exploring women’s emotional barriers to exercise.

Innovation in service

Keeping with the university’s mission, the School of Education continues to be active in service.

Renovations are complete for the school’s recently established Maryann Manning Family Literary Center, and plans for its grand opening are underway. The center was established in 2014 to honor and continue the work of longtime faculty member Maryann Manning, Ed.D. The center brings together expertise from many areas of literacy to provide services for children and families throughout the state, regionally and globally.

Planning for next year’s Girls in Science in Engineering Day is underway. GSED is a unique, free event created by two UAB students in 2011 to inspire and empower Birmingham-area middle school girls to achieve and excel in science and engineering fields. It is a day for local middle school girls to come to UAB and participate in fun science and engineering activities led by women who are professors, scientists and students from UAB and the surrounding community.

Since 2011, the UAB Community Counseling Clinic, housed in the School of Education building, has filled a service gap for people in Jefferson County by providing low-cost mental health counseling. The center sees an average of 112 patients a year and partners with more than 60 community organizations and agencies for referrals. The clinic is run by School of Education faculty. Services are provided by advanced graduate students and supervised by doctoral-level faculty. The clinic is working to expand its outreach within the community.

The school looks to create new partnerships and strengthen existing ones to develop innovative approaches for addressing areas of critical need locally and beyond.

UAB professors who developed a new area of translational cardio-renal research are among 15 professors identified as today’s leaders in the field.

David and Jennifer PollockJennifer Pollock, Ph.D., and David Pollock, Ph.D., are among 15 professors identified as today’s leaders in advancing and teaching nephrology and dialysis technology by medicaltechnologyschools.com, which helps students identify the best professors in technology fields.

Jennifer Pollock teaches nephrology and kidney studies at UAB and is nationally recognized for both her student mentorship and research, as evidenced by her recent Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award from the American Physiological Society.

David Pollock also is a past president of the APS and was the recipient of the Louis K. Dahl Award for Hypertension Research from the American Heart Association in 2013. He recently visited Cuba with an APS delegation towith leaders of the Cuban Society of Physiological Sciences.

The Pollocks joined UAB in 2014 to build the new cardio-renal program.

Smita Bhatia, M.D., M.P.H., director of UAB's new Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship, explains how cancer treatments can lead to chronic health conditions in later life — and how "survivorship clinics" will help.

Written by Matt Windsor

This article is adapted from a video interview with Dr. Bhatia on UAB’s MD Learning Channel.

Even after cancer is defeated, it can cast a lifelong shadow. “Cancer survivorship represents a very critical phase,” said Smita Bhatia, M.D., M.P.H., a pediatric oncologist and director of the new Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship in the UAB School of Medicine and associate director for cancer outcomes research at theUAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. “We and others have shown in our research studies that our cancer survivors are a vulnerable population,” she said. “When you follow them long-term, you find that they have a very high burden of chronic health conditions.”

Often, these health problems can be linked back to cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, radiation and even surgeries, Bhatia said. Because these complications can occur “many years after the completion of treatment,” they are called “late effects.” One example involves a particular class of chemotherapy drug known as anthracyclines. “We use these agents often because they are highly effective in a large variety of cancers,” Bhatia said. But research shows that patients who take these drugs have a high risk of developing congestive heart failure many years later.

Girls who have “received radiation to the chest around puberty for lymphoma,” have “an increased risk of breast cancer,” Bhatia added. And this breast cancer “occurs at a much younger age than would be anticipated in the general population. So these girls are developing breast cancer at age 30 and 40, whereas in the general population you’d be anticipating breast cancer at age 60.”

Results from a survey have shown that only a third of patients realize they are at risk for these late effects, and because the family practitioners and internists who are seeing these patients do not encounter cancer survivors very often, “it is not in the forefront in terms of their understanding, in terms of their knowledge base and in terms of their experience of what they should anticipate,” Bhatia said. Addressing this situation becomes even more urgent as the number of survivors grows, she adds. “The number of cancer survivors is growing at the rate of about 2 percent every year,” Bhatia said. “We will, by about 2022, have 18 million cancer survivors.”

“In order to provide the most comprehensive long-term care to our survivors, we need care plans. These “are essentially a summary of all the treatment that the patients received for their particular cancer, along with recommendations for long-term follow-up in order to detect complications.”

That is why UAB is establishing special survivorship clinics. “In order to provide the most comprehensive long-term care to our survivors, we need care plans,” Bhatia said. These “are essentially a summary of all the treatment that the patients received for their particular cancer, along with recommendations for long-term follow-up in order to detect complications.”

The idea, Bhatia said, is to lay out “a roadmap for our cancer survivors for life. That’s what I would like to do for all our cancer survivors who are coming to UAB, no matter what diagnosis they have, no matter what their age is, from here on.”

Survivorship clinics are staffed by physicians, nurse practitioners, social workers, psychologists, and dietitians, “who provide absolutely comprehensive but very tailored care to the survivors,” Bhatia said. “So we would, for example, do heart tests in order to detect heart failure at an earlier stage only amongst patients who’ve received treatments that are toxic to the heart. Mammograms would be recommended for patients who’ve received radiation to the chest at a young age, and who are at risk for breast cancer.”

This “very tailored but anticipatory screening” is designed “to detect these complications at an earlier stage,” said Bhatia.

The same survivorship model can now be extended to care for patients with many different chronic health conditions, Bhatia says. These include patients with sickle cell disease, HIV, congenital heart disease — “any chronic condition where the health care providers can really coordinate the care of the patient as a whole, the entirety of their health, and provide complete and comprehensive care long-term.”

Naloxone kits have prevented more than 10,000 deaths from opioid overdose since local distribution programs began in 1996. Now, as deaths from opioid overdose reach an all-time high in the United States, a crowdfunded project from UAB researchers aims to put naloxone in the hands of those at highest risk.

Written by Lesley McCollum

Deaths from opioid overdose are at an all-time high across the United States, and Birmingham has been hit particularly hard. In the past four years, heroin overdose deaths in Jefferson County and surrounding areas rose from 12 individuals to 137. But a team of UAB researchers is taking action to respond.

The group is led by Karen Cropsey, Psy.D., an associate professor in theUAB School of MedicineDepartment of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology. Cropsey specializes in substance abuse treatment in vulnerable populations; some of her current research programs involve treatment of individuals in the criminal justice system and people living with HIV/AIDS. She regularly witnesses the devastation of prescription opioid and heroin overdose in Birmingham. “I felt like there was something we could do about that,” she said.

To combat the rising rates of death from overdose, Cropsey and her team are exploring the distribution of naloxone kits directly to individuals with opioid addictions, or their caregivers. Using naloxone isn't a new idea. It's been the standard of care for opioid overdose in emergency rooms, including at UAB, since the early 1970s. The kits offer a last resort option to reverse an opioid overdose and prevent death. Several states, including California, New Mexico and Massachusetts, have successful local distribution programs for naloxone. In 2010 the CDC reported that since the first local distribution programs began in 1996, naloxone kits have prevented more than 10,000 deaths from opioid overdose.

Naloxone to the people

Cropsey and her colleagues want to bring a naloxone program to Birmingham as well. But “our program is different,” Cropsey said. Instead of distributing naloxone kits to first responders and law enforcement officers — the typical model — the UAB team wants to try a new approach: prescribing kits to individuals.

By taking advantage of the new Crowdfunding at UAB site, Cropsey’s team raised grassroots financial support for a unique study. In 30 days, the team collected $11,500 in pledges — enough to purchase more than 200 naloxone kits. Now they’re working to get the kits into the hands of the people who need them most: active opioid and heroin users.

The researchers are now hanging flyers around Birmingham and screening individuals interested in participating. They will be collecting information on how many kits are used, how many deaths they prevented and if participants follow up with treatment options after using naloxone. “I want to demonstrate that these kits can save lives,” Cropsey said.

Participants in the study are receiving training “on how to recognize signs of opioid overdose and how to administer the naloxone,” Cropsey said. They are instructed to then call 911 and go to the emergency room. Training is also being offered to friends or family members. It’s analogous to an EpiPen for someone with allergies, or insulin for someone with diabetes, Cropsey says the person who is prescribed the treatment may not be able to use it when it’s needed.

How naloxone works

When a person overdoses on an opioid, their breathing starts to slow down. After about one to two hours — or as short as a few minutes — breathing slows to a stop. This leaves a narrow but vital window to intervene. Opioids such as heroin or prescription drugs, including hydrocodone and oxycodone, work by latching on to receptors in the brain that produce their powerful effects. Naloxone rapidly displaces these drugs and then occupies the receptors so the opioid cannot return. Within minutes, the opioid is completely removed and the person who overdosed begins to breathe again.

But that success comes at a price. With complete removal of the opioid’s effects on the brain, naloxone puts the user into immediate, severe withdrawal. Imagine a sudden onset of the worst flu-like symptoms you’ve ever had, Cropsey explained. It’s “the nuclear option for people who would otherwise die.”

“They need to be alive to get treatment”

Working with such a stigmatized group of people brings challenges, Cropsey says. She often hears that people addicted to drugs should just quit — that they choose to be addicted in the first place and need to choose to stop. But while addiction does start as a choice, Cropsey explains, it doesn’t take long for a user’s system to get hijacked by the drugs.

Besides, many of us are dealing with the consequences of choices that negatively affect our health, she adds. Whether it’s Type 2 diabetes or obesity from our eating habits, or lung cancer from smoking, a majority of the leading causes of death result from behavioral choices we make, Cropsey said. “Addiction is a medical disease just as much as heart disease or diabetes.”

In an ideal world, no one would use drugs, Cropsey said. “Unfortunately that’s not the case here. We don’t live in an ideal world.” More than 2.5 million people in the United States abuse prescription opioids or heroin. Addiction finds its way into the lives of our families, friends and coworkers, Cropsey said. “What would you do if this was your friend or family member?”

Cropsey acknowledges the argument that distributing kits is simply enabling addiction. Naloxone kits reduce harm of overdose by preventing death, she says, but they aren’t the complete picture. “The goal is to get people substance abuse treatment to help them stop using opioids,” Cropsey said. “But they need to be alive to get treatment.”

If you are actively using a prescription opioid or heroin, or are the friend or family member of an active user, and are interested in learning more about the program, call 205-975-4528 and ask about the naloxone study.

Alzheimer's disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. One in three seniors will die with it. Yet almost half of the people with Alzheimer's and their caregivers never know they have it.

The syndrome is called thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, or TTP, and treatment involves exchanging three to seven liters of plasma each day, at a cost of $10,000 a day. This costly care may continue for several weeks or months.

From Christian Science MonitorCarbon dioxide emissions do more than just trap heat in the atmosphere; CO2 also lowers the pH of the seawater, making it more acidic. Now, research suggests that this acidification could drastically transform the entire ocean food chain.

The Roberston-Johnson home in Birmingham's Southside, pictured here in 2011, houses ArtPlay, an arts education initiative of UAB's Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center. The Queen Anne Victorian home was built in 1896.

The challenge is to stifle the binding of inhibitory antibodies but retain activity of a blood enzyme.

Long ZhengA rare autoimmune disease creates sudden pain in the abdomen or the head, sending a patient to the emergency room with a potentially fatal condition. The pain comes from a multitude of blockages of tiny blood vessels, formed after the patient’s own immune system somehow inhibits an enzyme that is vital to control clotting.

The syndrome is called thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, or TTP, and treatment involves exchanging three to seven liters of plasma each day, at a cost of $10,000 a day. This costly care may continue for several weeks or months.

Long Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., the Robert B. Adams Endowed professor and director of the Division of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Alabama at BirminghamDepartment of Pathology, wants to create a faster and more effective treatment for these patients. This has led Zheng and colleagues to molecular-level studies of the antibody that inactivates a blood enzyme, called ADAMTS13. ADAMTS13 recognizes and cuts a blood adhesion protein called von Willebrand factor. The inhibition of ADAMTS13 activity by the antibody in TTP patients allows ultra-large von Willebrand factor to form disseminated microvascular clots.

The ability of ADAMTS13 to recognize von Willibrand factor is exquisitely sensitive, somewhat like a fan who goes to a football game with 50,000 people and yet recognizes his cousin out of all the faces in the crowd. Similarly, the ability of the autoimmune antibodies in a TTP patient to recognize and bind to the patient’s own ADAMTS13 enzyme is also exquisitely sensitive, picking only ADAMTS13 out of all the other possible “self” proteins in the body.

Learning the molecular details of these two recognition abilities will help Zheng subtly alter ADAMTS13, to produce a therapeutic enzyme that can elude recognition by the autoimmune antibodies, yet still retains its activity to cleave von Willebrand factor. Such an engineered enzyme could be given to TTP patients in the hospital to speed recovery and slash the cost of treatment.

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “High Resolution Epitope Mapping by HX MS Reveals the Pathogenic Mechanism and a Possible Therapy for Autoimmune TTP Disease,” senior author Zheng and colleagues report on those molecular details. The results reveal, for the first time, the mechanism of the inhibition of ADAMTS13 by autoantibodies and suggest an avenue for therapeutic intervention.

“This was really surprising. It’s like a table with five legs. If you take one away, it should still stand, but somehow it collapsed. This suggests that you need the coordinated activity of all five.”

The researchers found that five small loops in the protein’s amino acid sequence are necessary for the autoantibodies to bind to ADAMTS13. Cutting or substituting several amino acids out of any single one of the five loops prevented binding; furthermore, those small deletions in any single one of the five small loops also left the enzyme unable to cut von Willebrand factor.

“This was really surprising,” Zheng said. “It’s like a table with five legs. If you take one away, it should still stand, but somehow it collapsed. This suggests that you need the coordinated activity of all five.”

Thus, it appears that the autoimmune antibodies in TTP patients inhibit the enzyme by physically blocking the recognition site of ADAMTS13 for von Willebrand factor. More importantly, analysis of autoantibodies from 23 more TTP patients found that most use the same binding site, suggesting that a modified ADAMTS13 enzyme by protein engineering may be able to help a wide range of TTP patients.

Details of the research

The five years of research for this paper included the labs of Don L. Siegel, M.D., Ph.D., an expert in phage display, and S. Walter Englander, Ph.D., father of hydrogen exchange/mass spectrometry analysis to measure the protein-protein interaction regions of large proteins. Both Siegel and Englander are at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where Zheng used to work before moving to Birmingham.

The researchers first isolated messenger RNAs that code single chains of variable region of the monoclonal antibodies from B cells of patients with acquired TTP. They used a technique called phage display to select the messenger RNAs that code specific antibodies that bind and inhibit ADAMTS13. These monoclonal antibodies are then expressed in E. coli cells, purified, and biochemically characterized.

Of these, three inhibitory monoclonal antibodies were selected for further study by hydrogen-deuterium exchange coupled with mass spectrometry. This technology uses amine hydrogen (in H2O) exchange with deuterium (D2O) on each amino acid residue except proline. After reaction was stopped, the protein was then cut into small pieces (or peptide fragments) and run through HPLC for separation and mass spectrometry for identification. Antibody binding sites were detected by their ability to block the hydrogen and deuterium exchange, as compared with ADAMTS13 that was unbound.

One of the three high-affinity probes selected by phage display was used for the competition experiments against polyclonal autoimmune antibodies from 23 TTP patients. The results demonstrate that this particular binding epitope is common among patients with acquired autoimmune TTP.

Besides Zheng, co-authors are Veronica Casina, Wenbing Hu, Jianhua Mao, Rui-Nan Lu, Hayley Hanby, Brandy Pickens, Zhongyuan Kan, Woon Lim, Leland Mayne, Eric Ostertag, Stephen Kacir, Don Siegel and S. Walter Englander, all of the University of Pennsylvania. Zheng was recruited to UAB from the University of Pennsylvania in February and is the inaugural holder of the Robert B. Adams Endowed Professorship in Pathology in the UAB School of Medicine.

Rowe is an expert in the design and conduct of clinical trials targeting the basic CF defect. He says being tapped to lead the center is an exciting opportunity to build on the long legacy of cystic fibrosis research at UAB.

“It’s an incredibly exciting time to be in CF research, and researchers at UAB have been a big part of that progress,” Rowe said. “There have been two new treatments approved in the last three years that address the basic defect that causes CF, so we’re changing the face of the disease now for a large proportion of patients. And with the discovery of these new treatments, researchers have a clear path as to what we need to do next to help find a cure.”

CF is a chronic genetic disorder of the body’s mucus glands that can cause severe or even fatal respiratory infections in children and young adults. Approximately 30,000 people in the United States have CF, according the National Institutes of Health.

The UAB CF center was established in 1981, with the mission to provide a comprehensive, multidisciplinary understanding of CF pathogenesis, advance innovative therapies and, ultimately, identify a cure for the disease. Center membership is made up of over 25 faculty from seven UAB schools and more than 25 departments.

Athletic director Mark Ingram said the NCAA informed UAB that football play can resume at the Football Bowl Subdivision level beginning with the 2017 season. UAB would be eligible for postseason bowl competition, should it meet qualifying standards, as well as Conference USA championships.

Halli Williamson of Oneonta, a business and music student, is working with children in need and their families as an intern with Sozo Children this summer.

Rising University of Alabama at Birmingham senior Halli Williamson of Oneonta says it would be impossible to put into words what she has experienced in Kampala, Uganda, during a nine-week internship this summer.

The UAB Gospel Choir member, 22, is volunteering with Sozo Children, a nongovernmental organization with an office in nearby Avondale. She applied for the program and was accepted, and she and 12 other interns raised $5,000 each to take the trip. Sozo has four children’s homes in Kampala, and Williamson is assisting in the group’s work toward The Village Project, which will be a full village with homes, a school, a church and a medical clinic.

She is experiencing the culture, learning the language, helping with cooking and cleaning, spending time with children and their families in the local village, and assisting them with chores, homework and religious study. They have also built a home for a woman in the village.

“This internship has been the most incredible experience, one that I hope to never forget as long as I live,” Williamson wrote from Uganda. “I have learned so much about humility, about hard work, about loving others and living in daily, authentic community, and my faith has been strengthened. I have been so encouraged to bring all that I have learned back to Birmingham, and I am excited for what is next in my journey.”

The internship can be compared to a mission trip, but is so much more, she says.

“Once I found out about this internship, I really felt that this was what I was supposed to spend my summer doing,” she said. “It was an opportunity to leave the familiar comfort of my home in the States, and to allow my faith to grow and be challenged in a place I had never experienced before. Before even considering this trip, I had a heart for Africa, for its culture and specifically for the people, so to have been given the opportunity to be here feels like the greatest blessing.”

“I have had such a unique and wonderful experience during my time at UAB,” Williamson said. “Although it took a few semesters to discover where my passions and interests lie, I finally found my place. I decided to take something I love, music, and pair it with something challenging that I am also passionate about, that being the business world.”

Her path at UAB has been challenging, but it pushes her to grow and to seek to be better each day, she says.

Williamson is a Business Student Leader and this year will be vice president for the Association of Information Systems. She has spent the past four semesters at UAB singing as a member of the Gospel Choir and says that, of all the things she has been involved with at UAB, Gospel Choir has been one of her absolute favorites.

“I’m so thankful how being in Gospel Choir has grown my love for music, and for gospel music specifically,” she said. “Performing with the Gospel Choir has increased my confidence and has allowed me to develop and grow in friendship with some truly incredible and talented individuals.”

“He leads his students with passion and wisdom, and he cares, not only about the growth of his students inside the classroom, but about their growth in all aspects of life,” Williamson said. “He has also been a great source of encouragement for me in my journey this summer.”

Williamson plans to graduate in April and hopes to utilize her business and music education in her career.

“I would love to work in the business world; I’m interested in nonprofits and small businesses, and I hope to learn more about that in these coming months,” she said. “I do not know that I will ever have a full-time career in music, but I hope to use the skills I have learned in my personal life or perhaps in a part-time way.”

“The Right to Decide,” an international poster invitational organized by the group Posters Without Borders, will be on exhibition from Aug. 6-Nov. 14.

By Mena Antonio“The Right to Decide,” an international poster invitational organized by the group Posters Without Borders, will be on exhibition at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from Aug. 6-Nov. 14.

Presented by the UAB College of Arts and Sciences’ Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, the exhibition will feature 62 artists from 25 countries. The artists, including some of the most respected poster artists in the world, have created new posters on the subject of voting rights and fair elections specifically for this exhibition.

The exhibition also includes student posters from university design programs in Russia, Finland, Colombia, Taiwan and five universities from within the United States. Posters Without Borders is organized by Eric Boelts, Antonio Castro H. and UAB Professor of Graphic Design Erin Wright, MFA, from the Department of Art and Art History.

University of Alabama at Birmingham alumna Marla Hines is one of 108 mathematics and science teachers selected to receive the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

Hines is one of two educators selected from Alabama. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in science education from the UAB School of Education.

“Receiving the Presidential Award is a reminder that every day is an opportunity to strive for excellence as I facilitate my students’ academic growth,” Hines said.

The award is presented annually to outstanding K-12 science and mathematics teachers. Winners are selected by a panel of distinguished scientists, mathematicians and educators following an initial selection process that takes place at the state level. Each year the award alternates between teachers of kindergarten through sixth grade and those teaching seventh through 12th grades.

Hines, who has taught 10th-grade physical science at Vestavia Hills High School for six years, also served as the 2012 Alabama Secondary Teacher of the Year.

Winners of the honor receive a $10,000 award from the National Science Foundation to be used at their discretion. They are also invited to Washington, D.C., for an awards ceremony, educational and celebratory events and to visit with members of the administration.

Set for 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 17, the tribute concert will feature a dozen musicians from Birmingham and around the Southeast together for one night to honor King. Join artists Elnora Spencer, Ona Watson, Chad Fisher, CeCe Phillips, Sean Michael Ray, PJ Spraggins, Joseph Stallworth, Joey Sommerville, Marc Phillips and GrooveDaddy, Microwave Dave, Norris Jones, Tim Boykin and UAB Artist-in-Residence Eric Essix as they pay homage to one of the greatest guitarists and musicians of all time.

The concert, free and open to the public, will take place in the ASC, 1200 10th Ave. South. VIP seating is available for current ASC members. For VIP seating, contact the ASC at ASCMembership@uab.edu or call 205-996-6113.

A 15-time Grammy Award winner, King began his influence on rock and blues music in the 1950s, and would go on to become a global ambassador of blues in his half-century career.

Born Riley Ben King on Sept. 16, 1925, in Indianola, Mississippi, King moved to Memphis at age 22 and began his music career on Beale Street as a disc jockey titled “Beale Street Blues Boy.” After shortening the name to “Blues Boy,” King topped the Billboard R&B chart in 1952 with his first hit “Three O’Clock Blues,” and his renowned career began. Indianola is home to the $14 million B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center, which opened its doors in 2008.

With his signature Gibson guitar, “Lucille,” King released more than 50 albums and logged between 200 and 300 shows a year, even into his 70s. Known for hits like “The Thrill is Gone” and “Everyday I Have the Blues,” the blues ambassador sold millions of records worldwide. King surpassed 15,000 shows around the world in his illustrious career. He was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. King held many awards and honors, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. King passed away on May 14, 2015, at the age of 89.

Created by a team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the panels are made up of a combination of thermoplastic and fiberglass resins and fibers, which makes them stronger than the steel used in many storm shelters.

UAB's new panels can be retrofitted to existing houses or integrated into new builds, and offer protection even in the most extreme EF5 tornado – that is, in winds over 200 mph (321 km/h).

]]>traci@uab.edu (Traci Bratton)In the NewsTue, 21 Jul 2015 10:23:10 -0500Ocean acidification to lead the way for food chain changeshttps://www.uab.edu/news/innovation/item/6307-ocean-acidification-to-lead-the-way-for-food-chain-changes
https://www.uab.edu/news/innovation/item/6307-ocean-acidification-to-lead-the-way-for-food-chain-changes

UAB research shows that phytoplankton, the foundation of all marine life, will experience varied growth rates due to ocean acidification levels during the next century.

Thermal image of the Earth highlighting phytoplankton communities in purpleNew research published by University of Alabama at Birmingham researcher Jeffrey Morris, Ph.D., in Nature Climate Change, proposes the ocean’s food chain might operate differently in the future, based on the effects climate change will have on phytoplankton communities.

Phytoplankton’s role in the marine food chain is particularly significant. Phytoplankton, which are microscopic marine plants, form the foundation of the marine food web and regulate key biogeochemical processes. In a balanced ecosystem, phytoplankton provide food for a wide range of sea creatures, including whales, shrimp, snails and jellyfish.

“Because phytoplankton types are not physiologically interchangeable, changing which species are most common in a community can impact the cycling of elements, the flow of nutrients and energy through the marine food web,” Morris, assistant professor in UAB’s College of Arts and SciencesDepartment of Biology, said. “The implications could be substantial.”

While phytoplankton are extremely crucial to the marine ecosystem, these organisms face multiple environmental changes, including the decline in ocean pH, also known as ocean acidification, caused by rising atmospheric pCO2.

The world’s oceans have absorbed about 30 percent of fossil fuel carbon emissions caused by human activity, resulting in a significant decrease in surface ocean pH. Concerns over the impacts of ocean acidification on marine life have led to a number of laboratory and field experiments examining the response of marine life to acidification.

“One of the striking things about this work is it shows that all phytoplankton groups will be affected by ocean acidification — not just the groups that make calcium carbonate shells, like those you see on corals, which is what researchers have traditionally assumed."

Morris’ research analyzed published experimental data that assessed growth rates of different phytoplankton populations under typical and elevated pCO2 levels. The data showed a wide variety of responses. Morris, along with collaborators at MIT and Columbia University, then took the effect of ocean acidification on the different populations and studied it within the context of a global marine ecosystem to explore how marine phytoplankton communities might be impacted over the course of a hypothetical 21st century, from 2000 to 2100.

The model ocean changes through the 21st century included warming waters, decreased macronutrient supply, altered light environments, lower pH and increased pCO2 — approximately 0.3 pH units lower and thus twice as acidic. By 2100, temperatures and nutrient conditions were shifted latitudinally relative to 2000, but pCO2 was substantially altered everywhere in the open ocean. Morris’ research focused on global changes to phytoplankton community structure and biogeography as a result of the ocean alterations.

The research found that different types of phytoplankton responded to the alterations in different ways — some populations grew faster in the future and others grew slower, but all phytoplankton groups were altered in some manner.

“One of the striking things about this work is it shows that all phytoplankton groups will be affected by ocean acidification — not just the groups that make calcium carbonate shells, like those you see on corals, which is what researchers have traditionally assumed,” Morris said.

In all, the results emphasized that the differing responses to elevated pCO2 caused sufficient changes in competitive fitness between phytoplankton types to significantly alter community structure. Acidification specifically had a greater impact on the populations than warming or reduced nutrient supply did.

Morris’ research shows that the phytoplankton community will look different by 2100, which in turn will impact the structure of the marine ecosystem as a whole.

“We now know that the structure of phytoplankton populations will morph in the future,” Morris said. “Further research will help us determine how that shift will alter other marine life that depend on phytoplankton for survival, and the marine ecosystem in its entirety.”

1.25 million grant will be used to improve services and results for young children with disabilities and their families.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham is one of six U.S. universities selected to receive funding to help address state-identified needs for highly qualified personnel in early intervention/education programs.

Professor Jennifer Kilgo, Ed.D., has been awarded a $1.25 million grant that will help improve services and results for young children with disabilities and their families.

Kilgo, a professor of early childhood special education in the UAB School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, spearheads a program that produces educators who are skilled in working with professionals from various agencies and disciplines to improve early intervention services and outcomes for young children with disabilities.

“These grants help support programs like ours, and they also help raise awareness for early intervention,” Kilgo said. “Even though it has been around for quite some time, people still don’t understand what early intervention is and how important it is for enhancing development in children who have been diagnosed with autism, developmental delays or other disabilities.”

The grant will fund scholarships for graduate students, provide research opportunities, and support collaboration between the School of Education’s early intervention/early childhood special education program and the School of Health Professions’ occupational and physical therapy programs, which comprise Project TransTeam.

The program expects to prepare 70 scholars prepared during a five-year period through an EI/ECSE graduate program that includes transdisciplinary coursework, seminars and fieldwork. These scholars will be able to provide improved services for young children with delays and disabilities and their families, including those from culturally diverse backgrounds and high-need areas.

“We will be able to provide full scholarships to 14 scholars every year, for five years. That is a substantial amount of graduate students. 100 percent of our graduates have been able to secure employment to meet the early intervention and special education needs of young children with disabilities in Alabama and other states.”

“We will be able to provide full scholarships to 14 scholars every year, for five years,” said Kilgo. “That is a substantial amount of graduate students. 100 percent of our graduates have been able to secure employment to meet the early intervention and special education needs of young children with disabilities in Alabama and other states.”

Students and graduates of the program work with community organizations such as the Rise School of Tuscaloosa, Mitchell’s Place, the Bell Center for Early Intervention Programs and other programs in the community.

“If it is determined that a child has a delay or disability, early intervention can make a huge difference across their life span,” Kilgo said. “Interventionists serve parents and children at a very early age. Our program focuses on infants to children 8 years of age. There also is a focus on preschool-age children to help them transition into school.”

This summer, students of Project TransTeam partnered with the Vestavia Hills Department of Special Education to provide an assistive technology program for children during Camp iMagination, a summer technology camp for children with special needs.

Project TransTeam is looking to recruit a diverse group of new students interested in obtaining a graduate degree to further enhance the number of qualified personnel in the field.

“We are targeting students outside of the field, those who don’t have undergraduate degrees that you think would be a natural pipeline to early childhood education,” Kilgo said.

UPDATE: Baby JJ recovering after second surgery

Jeremiah James Burford is listed in good condition, according to Children’s of Alabama representatives after his second surgery to restore function to his heart. Children’s of Alabama and UAB physicians performed surgery, known as the Glenn, on Tuesday, July 21.

“He is doing well,” James said Wednesday. “Doctors tell us he’s dealing with a headache, which is caused by the nature of the operation. We really appreciate the doctors for their help, of course. They’ve always treated us with the utmost respect and look to keep us informed on how he’s doing.”

Baby JJ is expected to be in the hospital for several days to recover from the procedure. He will have a third surgery, known as the Fontan, sometime between the age of 2 and 5. UAB News will continue to follow Baby JJ and the Burfords on their journey.

Crystal Burford says, if she didn’t know any better, little Jeremiah James appears to be just like any other healthy 3-month-old baby. He’s smiling, cooing, reaching for anything someone puts near him. He’s happy.

“He’s a very happy, seemingly healthy baby,” Burford said. “If he didn’t have the scars and feeding tube, you wouldn’t know he had an issue. He’s doing really well since we’ve been home. And we thought we’d have a little more time with him at home, but he’s got to go back to the hospital to have his next surgery a little sooner than we expected.”

In babies with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, the left side of the heart cannot pump oxygen-rich blood to the body properly. The oxygen-rich blood bypasses the poorly functioning left side of the heart during the first few days of life. The right side of the heart then pumps blood to both the lungs and the rest of the body. In babies with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, one of these openings closes in the first couple of days of life and prevents blood flow from reaching the body. This results in critical illness and even death in some instances.

JJ cleared a significant hurdle by responding well since his first surgical procedure, known as the Norwood, on April 14 — six days after his birth. The Norwood helps restore function to the underdeveloped heart. The Glenn is usually performed when an infant is 4 to 6 months old, but a routine catheterization procedure this past week identified a narrowing of JJ’s aorta. Surgeon Robert Dabal, M.D., chief of the Section of Neonatal Cardiac Surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, says the discovery — along with how well JJ has responded from his first surgery — accelerated the decision to move up the timeframe for the Glenn.

“JJ has grown very well and looks great,” Dabal said. “It will be slightly more complicated to repair the aortic obstruction in addition to completing the Glenn, but we anticipate that he will do very well. The bidirectional Glenn, though, is much less difficult than the Norwood procedure, both in terms of the surgical complexity and in terms of the physiologic complexity for the patient. The only new issue is that there will be scarring from the first operation that will have to be managed.”

“This is why we do a heart catheterization at about 3 months of age — for the reasons JJ has demonstrated to us,” Carlo said. “We do find important residual lesions like aortic arch narrowing that need to be taken care of prior to or during the Glenn surgery.”

How the Glenn works

The aortic arch repair will add a little bit of difficulty to JJ’s surgery, just because it is another procedure that has to take place in addition to the Glenn.

With the Glenn, surgeons create a direct connection between the pulmonary artery and the vessel returning oxygen-poor blood from the upper part of the body. It is designed to reduce the work the right ventricle has to do by enabling blood returning from the body to flow directly to the lungs.

“The heart will be very slightly bigger than at the time of the Norwood, but we don’t need to do anything inside JJ’s heart,” Dabal said. “The Glenn involves disconnecting the superior vena cava from the heart and sewing it into the right pulmonary artery. We will repair his aorta by adding a new smaller patch.”

The Fontan Procedure, the third surgery, usually is performed between the ages 2 and 5. In this procedure, surgeons connect to the pulmonary artery and the vessel returning oxygen-poor blood from the lower part of the body, enabling the rest of the blood coming back from the body to go to the lungs. Oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood no longer mix in the heart once this procedure is complete, and the child’s skin will no longer look bluish — a common symptom for the child after his or her first few days of life.

Infants who have these surgeries are not cured, and they may have lifelong complications. If the hypoplastic left heart syndrome defect is very complex, or if the heart becomes weak after the surgeries, a heart transplant may be needed.

Life at home with JJ

JJ spent 57 days in the hospital after his birth and first surgical procedure. Burford says there were many scary moments and some difficult times for her and her husband, James, things not unexpected but obviously tough for any parent to prepare for.

While caregivers worked to nurse JJ back to health, other issues the Burfords knew were possible also leapt to the forefront. Burford says coming to grips with his not being able to eat on his own, for example, was hard.

From left: Isaac, Crystal, JJ, James and LilyJJ had a g-tube surgically placed, and when that caused some reflux issues, he had to switch to a j-tube to be fed — a tube that is still used to feed him today.

“We are on a feeding tube 18 hours a day, and that is challenging because it’s very hard to be mobile,” Burford said. “You can take it with you; it’s portable. But it’s not easy to get all of it going and working properly, and you have to make sure he’s in a stable place.”

One of the most disappointing things for Burford was not being able to hold JJ very often early on when he was at his most vulnerable. She is able to laugh now at her initial thought in the hospital, which was that he would not want to be held when they finally got to go home.

“Sometimes when he’s crying, it’s just because he wants to be held,” Burford said. “He loves to be held. You would think being in the NICU like he was might give him some issues with that, but it hasn’t at all. He’s very loving.”

While Burford says the family hoped to get a little more time at home with JJ before the second surgery, she understands that timeframes can — and often will — change.

“The simple fact is that you can’t plan for everything with this kind of situation,” Burford said. “Emotionally, sure, it’s hard. You have to prepare yourself for another surgery, and that’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. But we know he’s in a good place with his health right now. He’s doing great. And if the doctors tell us it has to be done now, that’s what you do.”

About half of American hospitals have some form of arts programming, usually art or music therapy. Now a growing number of medical centers — UAB Hospital is the first in Alabama — are implementing the more comprehensive AIM model.

Written by Charles Buchanan

Artists-in-residence David Roby and Elizabeth Vander Kamp take UAB patients on imaginative journeys through their storytelling.Hospitals are not immune to magic.

When Elizabeth Vander Kamp begins telling a story to an elderly woman at University of Alabama at BirminghamHospital-Highlands on a Thursday morning, the room vanishes, revealing a forest where a steadfast princess tries to melt the heart of her cruel father. After a series of trials, the heroine emerges triumphant in the end — and so does the patient, who beams with delight from her bed and asks Vander Kamp when she can come back to tell another tale.

Vander Kamp will most definitely be back. As an artist-in-residence with UAB’s new Institute for Arts in Medicine, she spends several days a week visiting patients in the Acute Care for Elders and Bone Marrow Transplant units. There, the vivacious actress tells heartening stories to patients. She considers herself a “story gardener”: “By offering a story, I lay fertile ground for others to tell their own stories,” she explained.

The words they share are designed to heal, by helping patients to laugh and talk, to overcome pain and fear, to awaken their imaginations, and to revel in the possibility of happy endings.

The creative treatment

About half of American hospitals have some form of arts programming. Most take the form of art or music therapy, where trained professionals work with patients to achieve specific therapeutic goals. UAB Hospital has had a music therapy program for 15 years. But a growing number of medical centers — UAB Hospital is the first in Alabama — also are implementing the more comprehensive AIM model.

(Top) Melissa Turnage's movement class lifts limbs and spirits. (Bottom) David Roby sets some of his stories to music.“This brings to UAB Medicine the side of healing that isn’t science,” said Jordan DeMoss, senior associate vice president for UAB Hospital. He dreamed up the concept for the program a few years ago and, following UAB’s long tradition of interdisciplinary collaboration, reached out across the campus to UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center.

Through its ArtPlay education and outreach program, the ASC had cultivated a community of local artists eager to share their talents. Some already had conducted performances and workshops in local hospitals and assisted-living centers through the ASC’s ArtCare initiative. The experience demonstrated the tremendous power of the arts to transform lives and improve the human condition.

With financial support and belief in AIM’s vision, plus a pilot grant from UAB Medicine’s Innovation Board, which provides resources to test new ideas, the program launched in 2013. Currently, the artists-in-residence rotate through a few specific hospital units each week, but any inpatient can request an artist visit or art supplies. Families of patients are welcome to join the fun as well.

Dance it out

UAB’s adolescent psychiatry unit is a highly charged and highly challenging place. The 12- to 18-year-old patients have severe, chronic illnesses that can involve post-traumatic stress, anxiety or depression. But each week, AIM artist-in-residence Melissa Turnage turns on some music and teaches these teenagers how to dance: ballet, jazz or freestyle.

The effect on the patients “is a joy to see,” said Marion Wallace, Ph.D., assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry and clinical director of the Alabama Department of Mental Health unit at UAB Hospital. “Their faces are so bright. You see them smile. They look forward to it.”

A block away, UAB’s BMT unit cares for patients fighting multiple myeloma, lymphoma, leukemia and some solid tumors. Their rooms are open and airy, with large windows; but after a few weeks, some patients feel as if they are in a cave, says nurse manager Wendy Madden. Pain from chemotherapy and depression are common. “They’re facing cancer, and they know what the outcome can be,” Madden said.

She recalls one depressed patient who did not want to eat or get out of bed, putting her at risk for pneumonia and other conditions. Heeding Madden’s call, Vander Kamp offered the patient a little escape through the entertaining tale of a girl with long, flowing hair.

“I saw a transformation as the patient watched Elizabeth,” Madden said. “She had a little smile on her face, and when we left the room, she didn’t ask us to turn off the lights.”

Those smiles illuminate AIM’s deeper benefits. Research at other medical centers has indicated that arts programs may boost the moods of patients and their families by reducing perceived pain, anxiety and stress. In turn, that could contribute to a reduction in medication use, a quicker recovery and a shorter hospital stay.

“We know that AIM is the right thing to do for our patients,” DeMoss said. “The arts have thrived for thousands of years, which is proof enough that they are beneficial and therapeutic.”

Wallace agrees. “Sometimes our patients aren’t at a point where they can speak about traumatic experiences in a therapy session because it’s too distressing,” she said, “but they can dance to some music and express their feelings that way.”

“It’s a compassionate, effective method of treating our patients’ pain and depression without giving them another pill,” Madden said.

Kimberly KirklinTale as Old as Time:

Merging the arts with medicine might seem like a 21st-century concept, but its roots stretch back to the beginning of human history, says Kirklin. “Dance and visual art have always been part of traditional healing practices,” she explained. The fine line separating physicians and artists began to widen only a few centuries ago, when scientific discoveries about germs led to hospitals’ becoming more sterile, separate environments. Now, with medical centers shifting to a “whole-person” approach to treatment, “it’s become very clear that the arts do have a place,” Kirklin said. “It brings the soul back to medicine.”

Infusions of imagination

When textile artist Lillis Taylor rolls her art cart, overflowing with colorful fabric and thread, into the High-Risk Obstetrics unit in UAB’s Women and Infants Center, “it starts a conversation,” she said. Before too long, you could mistake the unit for an old-fashioned quilting bee.

“It’s exciting to talk to the mothers, and sometimes the fathers, about the hopes and dreams they have for the baby who’s coming. They want to make something so that their child knows they were excited about his or her arrival.”

Lillis Taylor, center, leads a stress-relieving class for clinical staff.The act of putting stitches in fabric also serves another purpose on this unit, where anxiety can run high among expectant mothers worried about the health of their unborn babies.

“It’s very meditative,” Taylor said. “It provides a single focus. The women really take ownership of their projects, and sometimes they continue working on them when they go home.”

The gentle, positive impact of the arts on patients and families has not been lost on UAB Hospital’s clinical staff, who have welcomed AIM with open arms. The program “is one of the greatest things to happen to our unit,” said Terri Middlebrooks, clinical care coordinator for the nationally renowned ACE unit. She and her staff care for patients ages 65 and older — the oldest was 112 — with a focus on mobility and cognitive stimulation to help them maintain function and quality of life. Some patients stay on the unit for extended periods; many have dementia. For these elderly patients, AIM is a perfect fit, Middlebrooks says.

“Our patients need people to talk with them; they want to tell their stories,” she said. Vander Kamp and actor/playwright David Roby are ready to listen. Sometimes the artists go first, reciting a poem, retelling a legend or acting out a Shakespeare monologue. When the patients begin sharing true stories from their own lives, Roby helps them write mini-memoirs to preserve those precious words for their families. If the patients are not able to write, he often does it himself.

“Otherwise, these stories would be lost,” Roby said. “They might say something about themselves or their lives that their families might not know.” Sharing their stories can also feel uplifting and cleansing, he adds.

Middlebrooks has watched her patients smile, eat better and “come alive” after visits from the storytellers and visual artists. The ACE patients especially enjoyed coloring with crayons, she says. She has even seen improvements in patients with memory problems. The artists-in-residence play such a vital role in the unit that they have even become part of the ACE care team, participating in rounds meetings where clinicians review the status of each patient.

“Terri will say, ‘please go see this patient; he would really enjoy a visit from you’ or ‘go see this person because she seems particularly down today,’” Vander Kamp said. By getting to know each patient, Vander Kamp and the other artists can also provide clinical staff with valuable observations and insights that can enhance care.

Wallace has even tweaked her own approaches to patient therapy sessions after watching the artists work.

“Before AIM, I would start with cognitive skills or behavior reversals,” she said. “Now I begin by asking the patients if they want to listen to music or show me the dance steps they learned. I don’t think we, as staff, previously understood how calming and soothing the arts can be.”

Painting away the stress

What calms and soothes the patient also applies to physicians, nurses and other clinical staff, who often need some time to heal from the emotion and stress of each day’s work. For them, the artists-in-residence offer classes in painting, calligraphy and movement. Staff can even request one-on-one storytelling.

“Our staff care deeply about our patients, and to see them suffering and struggling is difficult,” DeMoss said. Through AIM, they can take a moment to relax, shift their focus and share difficult experiences with other members of their care teams.

“It helps them to be better providers, and it helps them sustain a career in health care,” DeMoss said.

“If we’re having a stressful day, we can do 20 minutes of yoga before dance starts, or we can do finger painting with the patients or learn the ‘Thriller’ dance with them,” Wallace said. In her unit, these activities can ease the staff’s tension in another way: “It helps our relationships with the patients. We set limits and boundaries, and they test those; it can become antagonistic. But we can have fun together in dance. It changes the culture of the unit.”

The caregivers look forward to seeing the artists as much as the patients do, Middlebrooks says, and some staff even carry the creative spark home. Wallace now practices dance steps and is experimenting with painting in her free time. Middlebrooks dreams of becoming an actress “in my next life” and may sign up for Roby’s acting class at ArtPlay.

“The artists move me,” Middlebrooks said. “I want to do what they do.”

Performance-based medicine

AIM’s story at UAB Medicine is just beginning. Plans call for adding artists, perhaps a musician and more visual artists, to meet the growing demand from current units and to reach new inpatients, outpatients, families and staff throughout the hospital each year. Public performances could help the sights and sounds flow into lobbies, waiting areas and main thoroughfares throughout the medical center. Gallery exhibits in the hospital, featuring works by local artists, also are a possibility.

Naturally, funding AIM is a challenge, particularly with the financial shifts that health systems have been facing. Community support, including donations and sponsorships, could supplement UAB funds to expand a program that pays dividends far above and beyond its budget, DeMoss says.

“I want AIM to be in every part of UAB’s care experience” — as ubiquitous as the televisions throughout the hospital and clinics, he said.

“We don’t think twice about investing in those TVs. We should also invest in a program that’s meaningful and engaging for patients and families and healing them in a whole other way.”

With philanthropic support, the arts have greater potential to change the lives of people suffering from illness, disease and other medical conditions. The artists-in-residence are eager to imagine that future. They are ready to tell and write more stories, paint more pictures, bust more moves and put all of their creativity to work to help patients feel better.

“We need to treat the illness; but we also need to address that there’s a human being sitting here, pacing, anxious, terrified and annoyed,” Taylor said. Art has a unique power to alleviate those feelings, she adds. “Art is very much a part of our hearts, our lives, our souls, our vitality.”

Wallace's adolescent psychiatry patients guided the creation of a mural painted by ASC technical director Adam Stermer (above) and other AIM artists—from selecting the undersea theme to offering a thumbs-up through a window as work progressed.

Born in Dublin and raised on Irish junior golf, he just finished his senior year at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Last month, he finished fifth in the N.C.A.A. Division I championship. His caddie this week is Alan Murray, who was also his coach at U.A.B.

The University of Alabama-Birmingham golfer, who qualified for The Open for the second year in a row, even shared the lead after he birdied the first two holes to get off to a flying start in just the second group of the day and his status as an early joint leader.